Microgreens are much more than a garnish and it’s time you start eating them

Microgreens are much more than a garnish you push aside on your dinner plate. They're delicate, nutritious and utterly delicious. In Phoenix, they likely come from a local farm called Arizona Microgreens.
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Microgreens are slowly moving from esoteric culinary circles to mainstream diners' plates. In Phoenix, one company holds much of the responsibility for introducing laymen to the diminutive vegetables.

They are those flower-looking garnishes piled on your roast salmon. They’re the tiny greens tossed atop pizza, inside sandwiches and within salads. They’re bigger than sprouts but smaller than baby greens.

If they’re served to you at a restaurant, don’t brush them aside. You’re supposed to eat them. And they’re actually delicious.

In Phoenix, one company holds much of the responsibility for introducing laymen to the diminutive vegetables.

Arizona Microgreens is run by two hipster brothers, Joseph Martinez, 28, and David Redwood, 35. The business has elements of things held dear by the younger generation. It’s local, progressive and socially conscious. It’s so intrinsically Millennial, there are three types of La Croix sparkling water in the company refrigerator.

In the span of a few years, Martinez and Redwood have taken Arizona Microgreens from a 200-square-foot greenhouse next to a vegan restaurant in Cave Creek to a farm that produces about 500 pounds per week. They sell their microgreens directly to consumers at a handful of farmers markets around the Valley. They’re also used at restaurants such as Binkley’s, Cartwright’s, House of Tricks and Cafe Monarch.

“People have this perception that microgreens can only be used as a culinary garnish to give a dish some swoosh,” said Martinez, who has been growing them since 2013. “That is not so. Normal folk use it in their diets.”

So how are you supposed to eat them?

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Brothers and Arizona Microgreens co-owners David Redwood (left) and Joseph Martinez, look on at the Phoenix greenhouse where Arizona Microgreens grows their microgreens on Monday, October 2, 2017. David Wallace/The Republic

Micro onion are thin green strips with a buttery flavor that’s softer than a full-grown white onion. Micro radish, on the other hand, pack a peppery, intense punch.

Microgreens of corn are sold as popcorn shoots from Arizona Microgreens.(Photo: Jennifer McClellan/azcentral.com)

Popcorn shoots are the “weirdest” things they grow and a point of pride, Martinez said. They are micro corn and they are lean, yellow sprigs that taste of sugar and linger on the palate.

Pea tendrils are his favorite. “It’s so dramatic,” he said, admiring the plant’s curly growths that mimic calligraphy. They started growing these because chefs were asking for something that held up to intense heat.

The farm’s best-selling varieties are a combination of different microgreens. Labeled and sold as “mixes,” the top three are:

Arizona Microgreens sells products in three sizes at farmers markets. Small containers are $5, medium are $10 and a large microgreen salad is $15. They also have a "farmers market special," $20 for a medium mix and a large salad (a $5 value); this is about a week's worth of microgreens for one person, according to Martinez.

Aside from eating them on their own, microgreens can be put on eggs, bagels with cream cheese, sandwiches, wraps, tacos, pizza and salads. You can use them to make smoothies, dressings and dips.

However you use them, “one things is for sure, people like food that tastes good and people like food that’s fresh,” Redwood said.

Don’t dare call them sprouts

Joseph Martinez, co-owner of Arizona Microgreens, cuts microgreens at the Phoenix greenhouse where Arizona Microgreens grows their microgreens on Monday, October 2, 2017.(Photo: David Wallace/The Republic)

Microgreens can be confused with sprouts, but the two are not the same thing.

“Whatever you do, there’s probably a thing that haunts you, a perception, that hurts you in our soul. For me, that’s sprouts,” Martinez said.

Microgreens are more developed than sprouts. They’re grown in soil with sunlight for two to three weeks, and then harvested by cutting the leaf and stem from the root. Sprouts are germinated seeds that have been soaked in water. They’re usually only a few days old.

The distinction is more than superficial. It’s important for food safety.

Sprouts have been linked to outbreaks of foodborne illness 30 times since 1996, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The warm, humid conditions that beget sprouts are the same that grow bacteria such as salmonella, listeria, and E. coli. The risks with sprouts are such that the U.S. government recommends that children, the elderly, pregnant women and people with weakened immune systems avoid eating raw sprouts of any kind.

How does your (microgreen) garden grow?

In a word: quickly.

The entire lifecycle of Arizona Microgreens’ varieties is about two to three weeks, according to Martinez. Seeds are planted in rows of soil inside garden flats like the kind you see at home improvement stores. The flats are stacked on rows of metal bunk-beds by the dozens. Temperatures in the greenhouse range from 60 to 85 degrees. Passive heating and cooling is used most of the year, with evaporative cooling or propane heaters kicking in during the hot and cold months.

The Phoenix greenhouse where Arizona Microgreens grows their microgreens on Monday, October 2, 2017.(Photo: David Wallace/The Republic)

The whole process takes place inside a greenhouse at George B. Brooks Sr. Community School, a former elementary school the Roosevelt School District turned into an extended-learning facility in south Phoenix.

It's a mutually beneficial arrangement. For the district, the space is “no longer a money pit,” Martinez said, and for his company, “it’s a lot cooler to be sending our monthly rent to a school district that’s doing good things than a bank.”

Almost nothing wasted

Arizona Microgreens produces very little food waste.

Since only the tops of the greens are sold, that leaves part of the plant, the roots and the soil as leftovers. Instead of sending that part to landfill, the brothers compost it behind the greenhouse on an old basketball court.

Microgreen trimmings are composted on an old basketball court outside the Arizona Microgreens greenhouse.(Photo: Jennifer McClellan/azcentral.com)

The process is rapid (and somehow has no bad smell or bugs), producing rich compost in about a week. They donate that compost to Tiger Mountain Foundation, which sells locally grown food through a name-your-price model at farmers markets across Phoenix. The foundation’s headquarters are on the Brooks campus too.

“We are proud that all of what we produce stays within the state of Arizona,” Martinez said.

Blogger Cara Carin of Cara's Kitchen shared four recipes with us to show just how easy it us to use microgreens in your everyday cooking.

Combine chickpea salad ingredients and pulse in a food processor. You want it to be cohesive but still chunky.

To assemble the wraps: Spread mayonnaise on two pieces of lavash bread. Divide chickpea salad between the two pieces of bread and then add the sunflower shoots, micro mix, lemon juice and fresh basil. Season with salt and pepper. Wrap ingredients up and serve with Sunflower Shoot Dressing to dip.